I had testified several times during the 1980s without much effect, the immediately preceding testimony being in late 1987. After that, I met with the staffer who had arranged it and expressed the opinion that "global warming" was never going to get much attention if we kept scheduling the hearings in cold seasons. The next hearing was in the summer. By luck it was exceedingly hot, above 100 degrees in Washington. I came to D.C. the evening before. As usual, I was a little slow and did not finish preparing my oral remarks, because I was listening to a Yankee game. At a meeting on the morning of June 23 at NASA Headquarters, I was feverishly preparing my oral testimony when the chairman of the meeting said, "No respectable scientist would say that human-made climate effects are already occurring and detectable." That caused me to look up suddenly and say, "I don't know if he's respectable or not, but I know a scientist who is about to make that assertion."
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